(Part 2) Top products from r/Mindfulness

I think mindfulness is an open awareness of everything including the state of your own mind. The goal isn't to stop your mind from wandering, that's not possible. The goal is to notice when it does, and then, if you choose to, redirect your attention back on the present moment.

People hear this and they go "Yeah I get it, but isn't the REAL goal to stop your mind from wandering? Because that's what I want." Ultimately if you are mindful it is extremely likely you will spend less hours of the day with a wandering mind. But that wasn't the goal, that's a side effect.

In "complex adaptive systems", like people, you generally do not want your goal to be the thing you want to achieve. This isn't an opinion it's like a solid theorem or something, I can't remember where I read it though, but it's like a math thing, it's just how things work.

If a coach told the team their goal was to "score more points than the other team" how good of a coach would that be? Obviously they want to score more points, but that cannot be their *goal*. Their goal should be something like "move the ball up the field" or "maintain possession" or "keep it on the outside" or "get the ball to the Italians".

The greatest college basketball coach of all time John Wooden famously said that winning was NEVER his goal and it should should never be the player's goal. The goal was to play your absolute best. If you played your best and lost, that is great you succeeded. If you didn't play your best and won, then you failed, zero celebration for that, you were chewed out for that, you got extra conditioning for that.

How did this "not trying to win" philosophy work out? "In Wooden’s 27 years as the Bruins’ head coach, his teams won an unprecedented 10 national championships, including seven straight at one point in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The next closest coaches in terms of titles won? That would be Mike Krzyzewski and Adolph Rupp with a meager four each." [1]

Wooden always famously started new players off by teaching them to lace up their shoes. He drilled into them principles like enthusiasm, team spirit, initiative, loyalty, self-control. He had a strict no profanities policy: that was a demonstration you didn't have self-control and lack of self-control would lead to fouls which could decide games. However the goal wasn't "commit less fouls" it was "don't use profanity on the court". All these things resulted in winning games without ever adopting "win games" as a goal. [2]

You have to embrace "learn to notice when your mind wanders and redirect yourself back to the present moment" as the goal. If you do that 1,000 times a day that's great. That's 1000x better than not noticing your mind wandered. And you have to work on it. Most likely for your whole life. Meditation is something where the people who have done it for 40,000 hours, essentially all day every day, still feel it's worthwhile to do more of it. And mindfulness is something you can practice even when not meditating.

I do think you can notice changes in weeks or months, but it might be years before it feels "life changing". However your mileage may vary, might go better or worse than that for you.

[1] - https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1341064-10-greatest-coaches-in-ncaa-basketball-history#slide10

[2] - https://www.thewoodeneffect.com/pyramid-of-success/

See also: https://www.amazon.com/Wooden-Leadership-Create-Winning-Organization/dp/0071453393

The best way would be to get in person instruction from a qualified teacher. For mindfulness specifically there are mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) courses all over the world. There might also be some traditional meditation centers in your area. Look them up and try the ones that interest you. They're usually filled with nice helpful people.

You can also try watching meditation Youtube videos or meditation apps like headspace. Reading books can also be useful especially with the right book. There's a few good books on the side bar. Reading mindfulness books for anxiety is how I got started with meditation and they helped me a lot. Based on your last sentence about enjoying moments, I'll suggest this one I read recently called Joy on Demand. It's an easy to read book filled with a bunch of techniques for being more present and cultivating more joy in life.

Always glad to discuss!

I learn a lot as I try to articulate my understanding and experience. That is one of the reasons I started teaching mindfulness practice.

I've listened to a lot of Alan Watts. I love that he described himself as a "spiritual entertainer" and a "philosophical entertainer". I could listen to him talk for hours. :D

I've also listened to many videos of Tolle, he is a great guy. I haven't read books from either of them.

I've read a little about Huang Po back when I hung out in /r/zen a little. I've since moved on from that place. BTW if you ever go there, maybe you already have, take them all with a grain of salt. I think there is more to learn from the zen texts and meditation than the toxic people in that forum.

'Taking the Path of Zen' by Robert Aiken is really good.
https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Path-Zen-Robert-Aitken/dp/0865470804

'Mindfulness in Plain English' may be the best intro to mindfulness I've read.
https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-Gunaratana/dp/0861719069

'Focused and Fearless' is a very direct and simple guide to Jhana practice, or absorption concentration meditation. It describes very specifically how to reach and identify every level of Jhana.
https://www.amazon.com/Focused-Fearless-Meditators-States-Clarity/dp/0861715608

'The Posture of Meditation' is a great guide to the role your body plays in meditation. It is the most in depth guide on posture, but it can be an intro to meditation in itself. The author teaches that you can read deep mindful states with only correct posture.
https://www.amazon.com/Posture-Meditation-Will-Johnson/dp/1570622329


Most of those talk about actual practice, which I think is the most important.

For philosophy and understanding what is going on I highly recommend this course:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation

It is a serious and lengthy course for which you will need patience to sit through lectures. An evolutionary psychologist from Princeton - Robert Wright evaluates Buddhism through the lens of modern psychology.

That was a defining course for me and gave me a lot of motivation to practice whole heartedly.

You can get the collected works of Ramana Maharishi here:

The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877289077/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_Pp-TAbYXA9FVD


There is also the work of Gary Weber :

Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening https://www.amazon.com/dp/0595418562/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_js-TAb9HZYBP8

Evolving Beyond Thought: Updating Your Brain's Software https://www.amazon.com/dp/197972377X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_Ls-TAb76XWV5B

Self Inquiry is something that is done continuously through out the day along with sitting meditation.

To gauge progress, there are a few things to pay attention to:

1. Self referential thoughts will gradually stop along with practice conversations in the mind... the constant internal babbling in the mind.
   
   
2. Attention will remain on this precise instant in time creating a continuous flow of Now. Notice how the mind is constantly imaging an I/me/person in the past and future. This will subside.
   
   Find the feeling of “I” and focus on it as if it were the most fascinating and important thing ever experienced. The mind can only hold one thought at a time. If all attention is on the “I” thought/feeling then no other thought can appear and the mind will stop. The “I” thought is the root of all other thoughts... all thoughts emerge and grow out of the “I” thought. Keep the mind locked on the root and notice when it starts to grow and spread into other thoughts... let go of growing thought and return to “I”. As a side note, this is not the practice of repeating the word “I” over and over... it is the feeling of “I”.
   
   At first this requires an effort. With practice it will gradually become effortless. Once effortless, attention will linger on all perception in a continuous flow of now with the mind still. Have you ever laid in bed at night and lingered on a distant sound? It’s like that... in stillness. This is when the feeling of “I” will disappear.
   
   Everything appearing in consciousness is an expression of consciousness and has a strong sense of presence minus a personal self referential “I” thought. You are this space of consciousness, and consciousness has no qualities or attributes of its own. Consciousness is what creates everything appearing in consciousness.
   
   Another aspect of Self Inquiry is the act of sitting and searching for the witness/observer. This is where questions such as “Who sees?” and “Who hears?” and “Where am I?” come in. I spent many hours sitting and looking in my back yard, looking at what was seen and searching for the see’er before the realization “clicked” and took hold. I was suddenly stuck with “If I can see it then it isn’t me, so who sees me?” Attention then looked at the mind and everything about the mind started coming apart. It was as if the mind started to crumble away because none of it was me. Nothing about it was real... it was nothing but a bunch of conditioned stimulus-response. The mind is just a sensation appearing in consciousness, no different than the sensation of warm or cold or the sensation of sound or vision.
   
   In time you’ll notice that all thoughts and especially anxiety come from desires and attachments. Letting go of attachments is a big part of this process. Some strategies to help with this are:
   
   
3. The Sedona Method
   
   
4. The Work by Byron Katie
   
   Hopefully this helps... and remember, this is all about stillness. Be still.
   

Some things that have helped me:


https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Help-Nerves-Claire-Weekes/dp/0451167228/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?adgrpid=55435576229&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI75qVt6zw5QIVyp6zCh1OHgFPEAAYASAAEgKpMvD_BwE&hvadid=274678486488&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9007179&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=9901417112654074774&hvtargid=kwd-323874757874&hydadcr=22184_10176616&keywords=hope+and+help+for+your+nerves&qid=1573962830&sr=8-2

If you can find the audio of this book, it is worth it. Dr. Weekes made the tapes years ago from Australia and there is just something about her.


A great book on Meditation is Mindfulness in Plain English

Also, check out MBSR. Mindfulness Based Stress Relief. You can probably find books and audio online. It is an 8 week course with great exercises and tips.

There are several great apps to help with relaxing and meditation. You should check them out and see if one fits. Many that are subscription based offer free trials. My goto app is Insight Timer. You would think it’s just a meditation timer. It’s not, it’s a great app with a terrible name. A lot of free content.

Lastly, there are some great podcasts. One of my favorites is Mindful Minute. It’s a recording of a woman who runs a 20 minute meditation class but with themes. Each theme is 3 or 4 sessions. You can scroll through and pick something that suits you or start from episode 1.

I hope that helps. Take some nice, slow, deep breaths. If you aren’t belly breathing, look it up. Remember that panic attacks and anxiety are just sensations that scare you. Then you’re scared and you don’t like it and you start fighting the anxiety or panic. Guess what that does? Yep, more anxiety. Breathe.

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.

May you be safe, may you be free from suffering, may you be peaceful and at ease.

Ah, I loved How to Sleep as well! Considering that your brother liked a book that explains how our body works, maybe he'd like a book that explains how our mind works.

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman talks about how our brain make decisions. The Author actually won a Nobel Prize in economics for the work he did in Psychology.

This reminds me of one of the insights in The Celestine Prophecy:

>3. Subtle energy. There is an energy, previously undetected by science, that forms the basis of all things. Human perception of that energy starts with an increased awareness of beauty: people, animals, plants, ecosystems that have a high level of that energy appear particularly beautiful. By becoming aware of that energy, we become able to notice when and how we give and receive energy.

thank you again for your replies; very well articulated, very helpful to me

I would like to ask you for your favorite resources on how to enhance mindfulness/awareness.

Mine are E Tolle's The Power Of Now and Stillness Speaks.

I listened to Alan Watts Out Of Your Mind and Do You Do It or Does It Do You?: How to Let the Universe Meditate You, and read his The Way Of Zen. I liked the book very much, did not enjoy much the audios. I went right back to listening to E Tolle audiobooks, mainly his TPON.

Also, I am reading the The Zen Teaching of Huang Po

What about you? What do you definitely think I should listen to or read?

I guess before I could probably help with your question, I'd need to better understand what judgments you're making about yourself that make it difficult to find piece. What are you saying to yourself (particularly ABOUT yourself)? Are you telling yourself you can't do it? That you are flawed and so you'll "never be able to stick with it"? Something else?

If so, I'd say one of the most important places to start is to become mindfully aware of our negative self-talk and start treating yourself with more compassion. We all make mistakes, especially when it comes to lifestyle change. It is SO normal (and understandable) that we go back to old habits when under stress - but you need to be the one who reminds yourself of that, gives yourself compassion and love for being human, and then moves on.

Mistakes/slips are a lot easier to tolerate and overcome when we are kind to ourselves for them. Beating ourselves up for them might FEEL like we are protecting ourselves from slipping again by "punishing" the behavior, but it usually only sets us up to fail.

If it helps, I also HIGHLY recommend Kristin Neff on this subject and her book "Self-Compassion": https://www.amazon.com/Self-Compassion-Proven-Power-Being-Yourself/dp/0061733520/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= She also has a bunch of info and activities on her website: http://self-compassion.org/

Ah then you might like this book. It's not mindfulness based but it's a really interesting model of our brain that includes the concept of an inner 'chimp' brain. Definitely worth a read.

Mark Manson is really awesome. I've been a reader of his for a few years and just picked up his audiobook for "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***."

It discusses the counterintuitive ideologies that one must adopt to become more secure with oneself and others in their lives, by letting go of things they shouldn't give a fuck about. Highly recommended you start reading his material.

If you enjoyed that book, you should look into more books on Stoicism. I really enjoyed this one and this one

Tara Brach's True Refuge is wonderful. http://www.amazon.com/True-Refuge-Finding-Freedom-Awakened/dp/0553807625

This is a book not a movie but it is fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/10-Happier-Self-Help-Actually-Works/dp/0062265431

https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Buddhism-OPUS-Rupert-Gethin/dp/0192892231

many chapters in that book trace the spread of buddhist texts from india into asia. perhaps you can find something there.

Have you read The Art of Power by Thich Naht Hanh

Send this to him:
Life After Death https://www.amazon.com/dp/0142180289/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mDy6Bb6V848TV

Hey there,

Have you been diagnosed as having experienced trauma? Or are you currently experiencing traumatic stress?

From what I've read so far that may be the case. If that's so then I'd really recommend approaching mindfulness / Buddhism (I assume you learned impermanence there) with resources/teachers that are trauma-informed. Mindfulness can aggravate traumatic stress and in some cases cause retraumatization. You can still benefit from it, but only if you do it through trauma informed resources/teachers. I'd recommend having a look at Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven: https://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Sensitive-Mindfulness-Practices-Transformative-Healing